Bad News from My Ancestors.

Hi everyone,

My ancestors tell me I’m about to have a terrible year. According to the Chinese Zodiac, Rats will be experiencing horrific feng shui in 2026, being in “direct conflict” with Tai Sui, which can signal “significant instability, career hurdles and financial stress”. I guess they know what they’re talking about, seeing as I’ve just quit my job to learn how to write a novel. I feel somewhat now predestined to be holed up in a mouldy Wellington flat, wind and rain lashing against the windows, typing and retyping words which may eventually organise themselves into a fictional world of millennial ennui.

Please, do not fear: Cringe will live on in my brief nine-month absence from this piss-ponged city (the hot weather carries unmistakable wafts of the stuff wherever you walk). And it will maintain its Auckland focus. 

In an attempt to drum up some semblance of a novelistic plot for a book set in Auckland, I’ve been spending the summer holidays walking up and down, filling my notes app with observations. It turns out, observations are not plot. However, I now have plenty of useless material that spans the gamut, including: the dining habits of the Jehovah Witnesses that flooded our city in the last few days, adorned in lanyards covered bumper-to-bumper in badges; what the inside of the CityLink bus smells like (also piss-ponged); the unique frustration of waiting in full sun for the Wynyard Crossing bridge to come down again; and what people talk about when they’re in line for bubble tea, ice cream, and the Academy Cinemas premiere of Marty Supreme. There’ll be something there I can write about, surely.

Chinese New Year doesn’t start for another month, so my bad luck is only due to kick in on 17 February. I’m hoping to capitalise on this good feng shui while I can, organising my affairs so that things are less likely to go to shit once the clash with Tai Sui enters the picture. So I have a couple asks for you: 1) Does anyone know of a spare room going in Wellington, one that is preferably not mouldy? And, 2) Are you an Aucklander that can contribute a guest intro every now and then in this newsletter? We’d love to hear from you; you can reply directly to this email.

Happy 2026.

Love,
Jean

OPENINGS & CLOSINGS

A second EDEN NOODLES BAR (licensed, like the one in Ponsonby) is opening in Morningside, potentially taking over the spot that dessert restaurant Miann recently vacated. I’m happy to see that there’s still gas in the Eden Noodles tank, because I did worry for them in that hidden Ponsonby alleyway, especially after the failed XieXie experiment. 

The Italian restaurant that is taking over the old St Marg’s spot on Karangahape Rd, CASA BELLA, is opening tomorrow. Just what K Rd needs, another pasta place.

Staying in Morningside, Mexican street tacos and ceviche place AZULEJO are popping up at Side Hustle for three months. Get their fish tacos.

There is a Chinese-Japanese fusion seafood restaurant in Nuffield St (Newmarket) called HANAMI, whose menu has truly stupefied and baffled me. I’ve been seeing a bunch of food influencers visit, scoffing down things like oyster, chive and diced pork rice dons, and salted egg yolk calamari okonomiyaki? Nani?

However, this absolutely insane new buffet place, ORIENTAL WEST BANQUET LUXURY BUFFET, is perhaps somehow even more baffling: a massive wedding banquet-esque room set beneath a ceiling of fake stars and planets. I’m unsure of the target audience here and also sort of scared at the amount of food they must be throwing out on the daily.

Simon spotted DOUBLE DOG selling up its equipment in a local liquidation sale. Double Dog was a takeaway iteration of Ockhee, by the same owners. 

In absolutely devastating news, we also spotted Ponsonby Rd’s BOOZYLATO has closed.

RUMOUR MILL: Highly-awarded and beloved chocolate mousse purveyors Cazador are apparently opening a new deli in Parnell, which adds one more thing to a short but growing list of reasons to go to Parnell.

VIBE CHECK: I went to The Grey Lynn Firehouse for the first time, which is pretty much exactly what I expected (a pub for people that wear Salomons for fashion reasons, aka me). It was perfectly serviceable but I had a couple notes. One, that our very nice server suggested that me and a friend split the chicken parm because “no one finishes it”, but we proceeded to order two anyway and both did finish it, so please don’t listen to them; and two, that there was so little arrabiatta sauce that when recalling the dish later, I completely forgot there was any. 

SILVER LINING: Did you know that, surprisingly, the gluten-free ice cream cones at Giapo actually kind of slap? (Slap = good.) It’s nutty and has this snappy texture that reminds me of kuih kapit. Maybe it’s the rice flour?

INEDIBLES: Pitt St gallery GRACE is closing at the end of January but may be moving and MASSAVE on Karangahape Rd is closing which Simon is taking very badly.

So this is the new year, one predicted by both astrologers and the government to show powerful forward momentum, albeit for different reasons. Get ready for a forest of green shoots to be proclaimed as each tremulous economic indicator inches into positive territory, obviously due to sage policy choices. (Fortunately for the coalition, there is no readymade metaphor for the inevitable inverse movement – perhaps 'brown roots'?) Meanwhile, a struggle of wills is set to play out between Auckland and central government over the inaugural 10-year regional investment deal that has been in negotiation behind closed doors for months. It’s Mayor Brown vs Minister Brown, and the former sees an opportunity to leverage his popular appeal into concessions for the city from National as this year’s general election looms ever closer. With 2026 (well, the second half at least) set to deliver thousands more people into the city centre daily, perhaps this could be the year we can finally stop saying this could be the year. – Mike

FRIDAY 16TH

URBAN INVASION 3
Whammy, $35
A Judgement Night-esque Rock/Rap mash-up headlined by Smashproof’s Sid Diamond and TY with SKZR, Eli Globe, Job Site (winners of this issue’s Band Name of the Week award), Sprawl, Kaleb Strong and X3N0.

THE RIP
Netflix
Beloved Hollywood double act, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, are together again as probably-crooked Miami cops in another soon-to-be-forgotten Netflix thriller. You’d think they could do something to make these big-budget, star-driven movies seem like anything other than a thing to have on while you look at your phone on a weeknight, but for some reason they just don’t seem to be able to manage it. 

SATURDAY 17TH

ASB CLASSIC MEN’S FINAL
Takutai Square, Free
The stadium will be sold out, but there’s a nice viewing area set up at Takutai Square in the Britomart that is both free and much easier to get to and from than the Tennis Centre.

LEIGH SAWMILL JAZZ FESTIVAL
And Sunday, Leigh Sawmill, From $29
The jazz, it won’t stop. Saturday afternoon is Joe Kaptein + band, Saturday evening is Hopetoun Brown + guests and Sunday is a Love Square trio session. If you have a child under 12 or a particularly young-looking friend, they can get in free with you if you have a ticket.

MODEL
Big Fan, $20
Fun, local art-punk pop – listen to a preview HERE. Support from Woman, Lipstick Cherry and Blisster.

BATUSHKA
Double Whammy, $80
Hard not to get excited about this Polish black metal band who are heavily into the Slavic Orthodox church. If you are thinking they sound like shadowy figures trying to do evil in a Dan Brown novel, you can see exactly how right you are HERE.

MONDAY 19TH

A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS
Sky/Neon
Back, once again, to Westeros. This series seems to be a buddy cop situation with Sir Duncan the Tall and his squire (future king Aegon V Targaryen) adventuring around about 100 years before the events of Game of Thrones. WARNING: No dragons.

TUESDAY 20TH

RAY WOOLF
Birkenhead RSA, $25
He’s still alive!

WEDNESDAY 21ST

REPULSIVE WOMAN
Whammy, $20
Astro Children’s Milly Lovelock returns from Manchester for a small handful of shows ahead of her second album release later this year.

THURSDAY 22ND

THE BEAUTY
Disney+
International supermodels are dying in gruesome and mysterious ways as an STD that turns normal people into hotties is spreading. Potentially the first of probably many post-The Substance shows designed to create an opportunity for gross TV people to work with models.

NOUVELLE VAGUE
In Cinemas
A Richard Linklater film about the making of Goddard’s Breathless. It’s well reviewed but surely only really for the worst cineastes out there (Editor’s note: This is a thinly-veiled attack against me)

MARTY SUPREME
In Cinemas
Jean went to the preview at Academy with Sam Low and she says it’s good but stressful, and Sam thought the middle act dragged a bit.

THE LAST DINNER PARTY
Spark Arena, $106.80
One of the only good new UK bands. Also there’s a thing at this show where you buy a ticket and it gives you access to any standing or seating spot in the arena so can move freely around and don’t have to worry about sitting down or standing up for the whole concert which I am strongly in favour of.